I am a 40 year long driver. Over that time I have been involved in a total of 4 accidents. To this time I have been adjudged by a jury or a claims adjuster never to have been at fault.

This is a current claim under policy number 4051-75-56-60.

Back in October, 2008, I was involved in a fender bender collision with a student driver at the San Bernardino Valley College campus. The scrape went virtually the full length of the your lady's car, only the front left bumper and quarter panel were damage on my car.

On a three pronged parking lot on the very east side of campus, I pulled out of my parking place which was perpendicular to the North-South orientation of the long direction of the parking lot. I was only the fourth space in from the corner on the right side exit. I backed out of the parking space, proceeded to the corner and to the intersection of the exit from the three pronged parking lot in approximately 15 seconds. This would be a backing up of about 22 feet, forward about 40 feet until the turn of the parking aisle, then forward about another 20 feet to the intersection. This was all accomplished at a speed of approximately 5 miles per hour, 7 feet per second.

In those last 20 feet before entering the intersection, I was continuously traveling at about 5 miles per hours, 7 feet per second with my eyes focused intensely on the center aisle of the parking lot. I was satisfied that not only was there no car in imminent threat of hitting me as I was about to enter the intersection and turn right out of the parking lot exit of about 3 car lengths to a pedestrian cross walk stop.

I slowed even further for the one last second look straight across head on at the left side exit from the parking lot to make sure I would not encumber or hit head on any one exiting from the opposite side of the parking lot. Then, I nearly completed my turn still at 5 miles per hour, 7 feet per second, while looking forward to the crosswalk rather immediately in front of my car. My SUV car was virtually parallel to the North exit direction of the parking lot two-to-three seconds later when it was struck by the female driver in a small foreign sedan.

The first statement out of Tricia's mouth was, "I thought you were stopped." It is not known how Tricia perceived that my car was stopped. But if she saw the taillights it was incumbent upon her to stop her car leaving her totally at fault. If she thought that 5 miles per hour was stopped, that was a negligent act making her the guilty party again.

Now, if we take my two statements to campus police by me to be true: (1) I never was stopped. (2) There were no cars either in the middle exit lane which I starred at for about 3 seconds or the left side lane coming toward my car as I began the turn to exit the parking lot, then, again, we must conclude the young lady committed one or two violations which led directly to the accident. Also, thirdly (3), I never saw her car until the collision occurred.

From the position of the cars at the collision conclusion, my car was proceeding nearly parallel with the exit. This meant my car had gone a distance of approximately 22 feet, a 15 foot car length plus the width of the car, about 7 feet. This would very closely be explained by a 5 mile per hour or 7 feet per second rate over 3 seconds. In order to overtake my car and be slightly further through the parking lot exit when the crash concluded than my car, there is no way this could be accomplished by backing up out of one of the stalls on the left side of the parking and coming around the corner to the middle exit lane. The approximately 150 foot, 15 car parking on an angle away from the exit in the middle lane would have required a speed, at most generous to the young lady, in excess of 25 miles per hour plus backing out plus going around the curve at the opposite end of the parking lot from the exit. Proceeding at 70-80 miles per hour might have achieved this but this is impossible given the double curves at the end of the left side exit.

The other possibilities are that the young lady had done a back in parking in one of the center aisle parking positions which were slanted toward the opposite end of the parking lot from the exit and the building that occuppied the property at that end of the parking lot. But, even then the nearest of these would be across the entryway to the parking lot with its two side exits, or about 20-30 feet behind my car as it turned onto the exit. This would mean that the young lady was illegally backed into a parking and that her speed for overtaking my car must have been about 10 miles per hour. However, that is only if she were in the first parking. If she were instead half way down the parking lot, she would have had to travel about 100 feet to reach the final collision position from an illegal backed in parking position. This places her speed most favorably to her at over 17 miles per hour up to 22 miles per hour. At the far corner from the exit ramp from the parking lot her distance after illegally backing in at 170 feet or 30 miles per hour to 39 miles per hour. Back in parking is illegal. The post speed for parking lots on campus is 15 miles per hour.

The other possible scenario is that the young lady was properly parked on the East side parking lane on an angle out toward the exit. Then, seeing no one parked opposite her car on the center angle toward the opposite end to the exit parking location took off over the parking lot to the center exit aisle. This is another, negligent, dangerous if not illegal move on the part of the young lady. The times for this possible scenario are only a slightly higher rate of speed required to hit my car at the time of the collision.

Tricia claims that she was in the center aisle and therefore had the right of way over all others.

Two of your claims representatives have called me within the last two weeks on this matter as I have responded with a letter to the first. The first was a local claims adjuster. I argued with him that I was in the intersection when the other car struck me. He stated that it did not matter. The car going down the center aisle directly to the parking lot outlet had the right of way. This is ludicrous. Once one vehicle enters an intersection, as California Vehicle Code states, that party must have the right of way. Otherwise, no matter how rapidly one exited the intersection, someone could always good fast enough, theoretically, at least, to cause an accident with that car. Then, before I wrote the letter rebuffing your first claims adjusters conclusion, I remembered the young lady's first words, "I thought you were stopped.". Your second party from the corporate office called last week, he stuck by the guns of the first party stating that I was a fault because the young lady was in the center aisle exit lane.

As we can see from above, A POLICY OF CENTER AISLE EXITS ALWAYS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY CAN ONLY LEAD TO ANARCHY. IT IS WRONG AND VIOLATES THE VEHICLE CODE OF EVERY STATE IN THE UNION APPLICABLE TO INTERSECTIONS AT UNCONTROLLED ROADWAYS. WHY SHOULD PARKING LOTS BE ANY DIFFERENT. THEIR INTERSECTIONS ARE, AFTER ALL, UNCONTROLLED ROADWAYS.

The collision stopped less than two car lengths from a controlled pedestrian crosswalk which commonly held college students. This excess speeding and reckless driving by Tricia might well have led to injury or death of a student.

Yet, both of your claim adjustors are adamant about the conclusion that the center lane exit aisle from a parking lot always has the right of way.

Right way, wrong way, this is no way to be.

Sincerely,

Michael S. Ross

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Misleading policy coverage

Posted by KaiTso on 03/02/2010

When signing up for Geico Auto Insurance coverage, the policy information is misleading, which ultimately caused me to choose the wrong coverage and pay out-of-pocket when I was a victim of a hit and run.

Uninsured Motorist coverage vs. Collision coverage

Geico will not allow both uninsured motorist coverage and collision coverage simultaneously - this is fine, because it prevents unscrupulous clients from trying to claim twice on the same incident. However, the big issue I have is that the uninsured description is misleading, to say the least. The description on Geico's website for the uninsured coverage is:

"Uninsured Mororist Property Damage pays for damage to your vehicle caused by an uninsured driver or in many cases, a hit-and-run driver. There are a number of common exclusions to this coverage that will be detailed in your policy"

On the other hand, the description hidden in the policy is:

"Uninsured Motorist Property Damage Uninsured Motorist Property Damage pays damages you are legally entitled to recover because of damage to your insured vehicle caused by uninsured motorists. There is no coverage if the owner or operator of the uninsured motor vehicle cannot be indentified or the vehicle cannot be identified by license number. This coverage will pay a maximum limit of $3,500 for any single accident. "

Let me ask you this - how many hit-and-run drivers are found? I would confidently wager that it is not any kind of majority; therefore, how can Geico say that "many" or "most" (depending on which part of the site you are looking at the description) hit-and-runs are covered? Had I understood this in the beginning, I would easily have chosen the COLLISION coverage over the uninsured motorist / uninsured property coverage. I've been wasting my money assuming that my beloved BMW was covered for any damage, caused by myself or anyone else, and I am crushed today to find out that this was not the case. I feel as though I've been paying my dues for literally nothing.

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What GEICO won't tell you if one of their insured drivers hits you

Posted by Lisa on 02/20/2010

PG, UTAH -- Someone insured with Geico hit my daughter's car. The other driver admitted fault to the officer on the scene and to Geico. Geico decided our car was a 'total loss'. They paid us about half what the car is worth. They withheld a lot of information from us in order to save themselves money. The claims department representative was extremely unhelpful. I only got the information I needed when I called the adjuster directly.

IF GEICO TOTALS YOUR CAR they will decide the value, not you. If I was selling my car on the open market, I certainly would have gotten more for it than Geico paid me.

IF YOU ARE GETTING A RENTAL CAR PAID FOR BY GEICO do it right away! Don't delay for even a day. They will only pay for the car from the time of the accident until 'three days past settlement'. 'Settlement', in their definition, is when they send you the first check, even if the amount is still in dispute and they plan on sending you a second check. They want to send you a check for the amount that is undisputed, and they want to send it as quickly as possible, so then they can quit paying for the rental car. Three days is not enough to get your car fixed, and it is not enough time to go out and buy a new car. DON'T ACCEPT ANY CHECKS AT ALL UNTIL YOU HAVE REACHED A FINAL SETTLEMENT!

If they had told us a rental car was available right away, we would have gotten one sooner and then we would have had it for a couple weeks - long enough to repair the extensive damage to our car or to shop for a new one. Of course, it is not in their best interest to tell you a rental is available until after its too late to take advantage of one.

ALSO: BE AWARE that rental car companies count their 'days' on a 24-hour period while Geico counts calendar days. If Geico is 'totaling' your car, they will pay for 'FIVE' days of a car rental. We picked up a rental car on Monday evening and Geico counted that as day One! They would only pay until Friday. That only gave us 3.5 actual days to get the car fixed which was not enough time. When I called the adjuster directly, he finally authorized a few more days.

IF YOU ARE DISPUTING THE AMOUNT OF THE LOSS you will need to spend quite a bit of time researching comparables. You will need to find other cars in your area that are the same make and model as your car, and that are in the same condition. That's going to be very tough for us because we had just put a new transmission in our car. That $2K is now wasted because one of their insured drivers hit our car and there are hardly any comparables with new transmissions. MAKE SURE YOU KEEP ALL RECEIPTS FOR WORK DONE ON YOUR CAR so that you can produce them if someone hits you. Geico gave us only $150 credit for the new transmission. We are going to have to take them or the driver to court over this. I think that's sad.

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They Will Call You a Liar

Posted by Methodologyx on 09/17/2013

Rating: 1/51

EVERYWHERE, TEXAS -- I just had this happen and wrote this email today to/with Geico.

I saw the claim person today, I understand that insurance companies have to deal with a lot of fraudulent claims. And in my circumstance I understand I forgot to include a major detail that happened after the first accident. Because not only was there a lot of things going through my mind to keep me from thinking properly, but I just wanted to get my vehicle off the road before it got hit again. But I found it absolutely offensive when I was told, that the claim person felt I made up a hit and run story to claim hit and run. Had he talked to my manager, my manager would have confirmed after the accident happened I told him I only had liability and was going to have to repair the damages myself, even if I had full coverage I don't trust you or any other insurance company to take care of any of your drivers.

I know you people have not received any messages from me about payout or vehicle repair, because after I was even called by Geico and informed that the other thing I had on my insurance covered hit and run, I knew since I forgot to inform the police about it I was going to have to pay for it own of my own pocket still, and I HAD NO PROBLEM WITH THAT until this [snip] basically said I was lying. Is this what I should expect? Do the right thing, report the accident, get [snip] up in another accident and be told, your a liar, the second accident was bull? I don't know what part about "I didn't file the claim right away, instead I got online to find out how much it was going to cost ME to repair this vehicle, since I thought I was only paying for liability" he did not understand. I have never been so utterly insulted in my life.

---- YOU VERY MUCH GEICO.
SINCERELY,
STEVEN L. REID

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Fraud

Posted by Angeline on 01/10/2013

Rating: 1/51

LA MESA,CA, CALIFORNIA -- On 1-2-13 I had picked my girlfriend up from a Crisis House. A couple blocks from our destination we were hit dead on by a Geico Insured driver as he ran a red light. My car was totaled and had to be towed. At the scene of the accident not only did the driver admit fault but they promised their insurance would cover all the costs and repairs and even encouraged me to ask for a rental. The next day the driver now claims he passed the light through a yellow. I wonder how that is possible when I had a solid green arrow. The Geico Agent working on my claim wrongly and confusingly questioned my passenger that has a history of mental health issues. The Geico Agent then began to use false statements from the driver and insured, twist my passengers and my statements and use all the hearsay in the investigation as just cause to fraudulently deny fault for the accident. There was no proper investigation done. I know that because if there had been, the truth would have been found. I believe Geico insurance has made a terrible name for themselves by allowing their agents to make such bogus decisions along with the nasty way the agent treated my passenger and myself. Because of this I had to hire an attorney to fight for me. I am 23 and I go to school fulltime. This accident not only took me out of school for over a week but totaled my car and left me stranded in the city of the accident. I have never experienced such bad service in my life and I am determined to show the truth of how these people operate their fraudulent business. Thank you for reading.

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Con-Artists

Posted by Jenna on 12/27/2012

Rating: 1/51

BRAINTREE, MASSACHUSETTS -- Geico Insurance Company is the most slimy, false company I have ever had the displeasure to do business with. One of their employees (I still know her name, to this day) falsely informed me of procedures that go along with cancelling an insurance policy that ended up costing me over $100. When I spoke to a supervisor and told her the girl's name who fed me the wrong information, she sarcastically said "Yeah let me go ask her what really happened", left me on hold for ten minutes, and then came back on to (predictably) tell me "She says that's not what happened." How convenient for you and your multi million dollar corporation that your employee is refusing to own up to her mistake! When I contacted the BBB about the matter, I was fed the same bologna by a representative from their executive office. They are now demanding that I pay for their employee's mistake with my money. I am thoroughly disgusted and disappointed with how I was treated and spoken to as a customer. Worst insurance company ever.

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Unabe to Handle Caim Properly

Posted by Darcie on 12/02/2012

Rating: 1/51

CALIFORNIA -- I was on the road with right of way when a Geico policy holder "floored it" out of Taco Bell parking lot, ramming her front end into the side of my vehicle causing a little over $2300 in damages to my vehicle and caused a whiplash injury. I immediately called 911 from my cell phone from in the middle of the road. When law enforcement arrived & did their investigation, he (the officer)determined the "other driver" (Geico policy holder) completely at fault, as I was legally on the road, having right-of-way, I had to provide the police report to Geico claims. They "investigated", even going so far as to tell my mechanics they were trying to figure out how to put 35% liability on me, even though law enforcement already put liability on the other person. It took a month to get a rental car at their expense. I had to TELL them to contact my mechanics to authorize repairs 96 hours after their "date of liability determination". I had to contact them a week later to TELL them to cut the check to pay for repairs to my vehicle. (This should have been done at the same time as authorization was given to the shop) When I FINALLY got my vehicle home an repaired 1 month 15 days after the accident, I again had to call and TELL them to contact the rental car company to OK through November 16, 2012 so the rental car company would return the $86.00 deposit money that I had to pay out-of-pocket. (I am disabled and on SSI/SSD, so this is a lot of money for me to be out in "limbo") I am not happy at all with having to dictate every step of the way to the insurance company how to do their job when I am injured and my vehicle was damaged due to one of their policy holders showing incompetent driving on a clear, sunny day at 12:09 pm in California.

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Geico will abandon their customers in times of need

Posted by Buddy2010 on 09/16/2010

FREDRICKSBURG, VIRGINIA -- My car was broken into, in which the items that were taken caused my car to be considered a total lost. At first my insurance company Geico, had set up a rental car for me, along with giving me an starting offer for the value of my car, and buy back value. The value that was offered to me was very low, $5000 less than NADA values; while the buy back option was high, 32% of amount they offered me. This led me to researched the method that Geico derived of the value for my car, where Iâve found that they based this information off CCC Information Service, formerly known as CCC Valuescope. CCC has had class action lawsuits in the past for providing abnormally low values so that insurance companies can under pay claims. In my case CCC provided comparatives, and when I contacted those people who were selling these units, most of them were sold, or the owners admitted to them having problems. I than contacted CCC directly to alert them of the errors, and I was told alarming information regarding the vehicles that they used as comparatives; they said that didnât care about condition or history, they were only finding cars that had similar miles. They also used a weighted mean method to determine the value offered, where the cheaper cars were favored, which lowered their offering price. This led to a complaint against CCC. After I brought this to the attention of my claims adjuster, he had his manager call me. His manager became so angry that I challenge him, and his company on the methods they used, that they sent my claim to their Fraud unit, better known as SIU unit.

Here is where Geicoâs customer service took a serious turn for the worse. This manager who was very rude to me, and insulting; he even stop returning my calls, and I have to practically chase him down to find out information about my claim. He had my rental car voucher revoked, and he told me that my claim was under investigation. I was placed under investigation because I challenged him on the value of my car. Iâve cooperated with the fraud unit, and have provided them with everything that they ask for. Its been month now since the incident, and this manager is still advocating the fraud department to seek additional information. I tried calling the managerâs boss, who wonât return my calls either.

I am disabled person, still recovering from a brain injury, in which I ambulate with an walking assistance device. I take a lot of medication for the brain injury, and I have issues with depression as of a result of my injuries. I brought this car as a present to myself, more so to cheer me up for all Iâve been through. My car still sit unfix thanks to Geico. They do not stand behind their customerâs, and I tell all anyone considering them to go elsewhere.

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Misled of coverage

Posted by absnowman on 02/24/2010

I have recently had an unfortunate incident.

Occurrence: While traveling back from Idaho on vacation. I was driving on I84 East ound, I had recently past a truck and got back in right hand lane, I looked back a few minutes later and noticed a fire on trailer, I came to stop and tried to put fire out, Fire became out of control, as trailer was loaded with snowmobiles and luggage. the fire started on gear. This incident occurred just east of exit 115 (Henefer, UT), I called 911, it took over 15-20 minutes for Fire depatment to arrive and come to find out we were less than a mile away from fire house. when fire dept arrved, they did not know how to operate equipment and initially spray water on fire which was burning plastic and fuel, when one fireman asked for foam other fireman asked how do you turn on? All we could do was watch in despair as numerous items became destoyed. Fortunate no one was injured.

I called insurance company for vehicle which I was placed on hold numerous times and response was you need to call homeonwers insurance it falls under that policy. When I returned home, I called homeowners insurance and it covers personal property but not anything with engine. I called Geico back to speak again and have sent numerous time on phone with Geico to resolve. Snowmobiles on trailer were not mine. One was my 17yr old sons that he had purchased in Idaho the day before. I also have been told by Geico, they do not offer full coverage on snowmobiles due to covered under homeowners policy, which is incorrect, Also I have asked them starting over what coverage should I have and response from them is "I don't know", today I was told by adjuster that it is my fault I did not read all fine print in all my polices, to bad. I have contacted insurance commission to try to resolve. I have asked for denial letter from Geico. As a consumer I feel completely misled by Geico and very unsatified with the answers I have been given over last few days. I carry full coverage on vehicle that was pulling trailer that is completely paid for..and come to find out full coverage doesn't cover what most consumers think. I have spoken with other insurance companies (Farmers and Allstate) to compare what is covered on full coverage and come to find out Geico completely misrepesents their policies. I have been a customer of Geico for quite some time and their best answer is I'm sorry and you should have read all fine print.

I know you get contacted numerous times about different issues, but I think consumers need to be made more aware of what they purchase. when people buy insurance they go through a broker or sales agent and think they are getting coverage and no one knows until its to late what's not covered, I would like to make people aware and maybe a checklist they can used to make sure what they are getting for coverage is what they want coverage and that just because you have full coverage doesn't mean it is. I hope you can assist in this matter. The leason learned in our matter is read all fine print, obviously insurance do not have consumers interest in mind, which is very disappointing due to average person thinks they are covered when they have full coverage insurance.

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Extremely Disappointed and Upset

Posted by Extremely Disappointed and Upset on 07/01/2009

It seems that Geico is more interested in saving their moneyand themselves than doing what is right for the customer. I reset up my policy and apparently thinking I was setting up a one time pmt, it was direct pay that was set up - pmts taken out automatically monthly, Then I called less that a month later to set up 2 pmts (because I was not aware it was direct pay I set up instead of a one time pmt which is what I wanted) and then cancel any future pmts after that, that I would mail the next pmt out, the gentleman I spoke with said that would be okay, he would take care of it. Well they put through another pmt anyway resulting in an overDraft fee- the pmt was returned to Geico, I called them again and explained this wasn't supposed to happen and again was told this would cancel and they would take care of it- but the pmt was put through again & resulting in another overDraft chg from my bank, both totaling $70. supervisors refused to reimburse the overDraft chg even though this matter should not have happened in the first place. They finally agreed to refund the money for the pmt they took out, however would not break policy or procedure and credit my acct, even though they took it out electronically. I have worked at places where you work with the customer to keep them as a customer even if it means occasionally going against the procedures. They said they would mail the check out, would take about 2 wks. unacceptable, considering rent was due and my account was now down quite a bit. Over much discussion, they said they could overnight the refund, oh but I would have to pay the $12.95 chg. Unbelievable. The worst customer service ever. To top this all off, I went online to look at my acct, which I hadn't done for months because I forgot the password. Anyway through all this they kept on saying they mailed out information that I was signed up for Direct Pay (automatic pmts taken from my checking acct) and that I had that time to discontinue it. Well I never got anything because they put the wrong adDress on my acct. So even if I set up the direct pay by accident, I had no paperwork informing me of this and informing me of the fact that I could discontinue it and they said, sorry that's too bad, they have procedure to follow and they couldn't help that, I was signed up and sorry nothing we can do about it. Nothing - really, they finally decided that I should not have to pay the $12.95 to get my money back that they shouldn't have taken in the first place - insane huh that I have to pay to get my own money back that they took out because of their mess ups and miscommunication. Amazing that if their customer service reps mess up and tell you they are taking care of your account and do not - then the customer is penalized, not the customer service representative Where I come from if you mess up a customer account, where ever you may work, you do your best to resolve the account that someone else messed up, but Geico only cares about Geico. I will report this to Better Business Bureau and fight to get the $70 back. I am a single young woman who has a child due in October and needs every cent, so you can imaging how upsetting this is. They didn't even care that I will be looking elsewhere for insurance. I WILL BE LOOKING ELSEWHERE AND LETTING EVERYONE KNOW NOT TO DO BUSINESS WITH GEICO. And this is not the first time I had problems with them. They also doubled my monthly payment when my insurance lapsed and said, that is how they do it. WOW, crappy service and rude customer service reprensentatives. They will only do what benefits themselves.